There’s no easy way to say this: Our long-term Nissan Titan XD Diesel was one of the most disappointing new vehicles we have evaluated in recent memory, a distinction highlighted by our truck’s serious mechanical issues and grounded in its general inability to endear when it was healthy. READ MORE ››

Jeep doesn’t offer its all-new 2018 Wrangler with a V-8, but a shop in Florida has remedied the situation, dropping a small-block Chevy under the hood. That didn’t take very long, did it?

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Bruiser Conversions of Clearwater has announced that it’s offering V-8 conversion kits for the JL-generation Wrangler using a Chevrolet LS3 crate engine. The company says it uses Jeep’s factory ECU to control the engine and sync it with all the other systems in the car, which means the instrument panel, cruise control, push-button start, air conditioning, and all other electronics that were taught initially to talk to the Jeep’s stock powertrains. The conversion retains the Wrangler’s eight-speed automatic transmission. There’s no word on whether Bruiser will offer the package to manual-equipped trucks.

After you buy your own Wrangler, pricing for the kit is $24,500 for a 450-hp setup and $27,500 for a 500-hp setup. This includes all necessary conversion parts and labor, but the company also says it will offer DIY versions. We’re not gonna lie: We’d love to drive one.

We’re mildly disappointed to learn that the 2019 Ram 1500 Lone Star still isn’t a Ram pickup truck styled after the Winnebago driven (flown?) by Lone Starr in the film Spaceballs. Instead, as it has been since 2002, the Lone Star is a special trim package offered only in Texas, where pickups rule. Previous Lone Star editions have accounted for as much as half of Ram’s half-ton pickup sales in that state.

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Based on the 2019 Ram 1500 Big Horn, the Lone Star is set apart with equipment including 18-inch aluminum wheels, chrome bumpers and a chrome grille surround, fog lamps, a leather-wrapped steering wheel, and, of course, Lone Star badging for the tailgate and interior. Options available to Lone Star buyers include Sport and Black appearance packages, an air-spring suspension, blind-spot monitoring, 20-inch wheels, and a towing package.

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The Lone Star will be offered initially with Ram’s 395-hp 5.7-liter V-8, while a 305-hp 3.6-liter V-6 will be added later. The latter will come with eTorque, the company’s 48-volt motor/generator electric assist, as on other versions of the all-new 2019 Ram. The company says that the Lone Star will be available in both crew- and quad-cab body styles with either rear- or four-wheel drive.

Pricing has yet to be announced for the Lone Star Edition (or any 2019 Ram, for that matter), but Ram claims that Texans can look forward to getting their hands on this special truck in “the first quarter” of this year, so by the end of March. Meanwhile, Spaceballs fans will need to continue using the Schwartz to convince Ram to create a Mel Brooks–inspired Ram 1500 Lone Starr edition.

-Mercedes-Benz is moving in a new design direction, both inside and out. Going forward, completely new models not named G-class will feature smooth, creaseless bodies created to be, Mercedes says, beautiful, pure forms. The interiors continue to evolve as some of the most luxurious cabins on the market, and will center around one large display screen that spans to incorporate the driver’s instrument cluster and the center infotainment screen. Daimler has already applied these motifs to the latest CLS-class and A-class models. The C-class sedan will have to wait a few more years to fully embrace the new themes, though, as the new 2019 model is a mere refresh. READ MORE ››

In some corners of the World Wide Web, a certain sort of sports-car aficionado is awaiting the third coming of the temporarily extinct BMW Z4. Pretty much everybody else is more interested in the return of Toyota’s venerable Supra, a car prefaced by Toyota’s FT-1 concept (pictured above). Now comes some news that might well enrapture both parties, although, in this case, it’s Toyota specific. Uncovered by the heads at SupraMKV.com, Japanese magazine Best Car seems to have found specifications for the new Supra, including weight and power.

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The most pertinent figures are 335 horsepower and 332 lb-ft of torque, with a 37-hp bonus overboost function, courtesy of a BMW-sourced turbocharged 3.0-liter straight-six. Weight is listed as 3284 pounds, which is 196 lighter than the turbocharged Supra we tested back in 1993. The new car is shorter than the previous model by 5.4 inches and rides on a 97.2-inch wheelbase. That’s 3.2 inches shorter than the previous Supra. It hasn’t shrunk in every dimension, however. The new car is 0.6 inch taller and 1.7 inches wider than the previous machine.

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Compared to the six-cylinder 2011 Z4, the wheelbase is 1.1 inches shorter, while the car overall is 5.4 inches longer, fractionally taller, and 2.5 inches wider. The overarching theme here seems to be a lesson learned from bygone Pontiac advertising: wider is better. The transmission is an eight-speed automatic, and while it looks as if the BMW variant will also offer a manual, the Toyota will be auto only.

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The new Supra will apparently wear 225/50R-17 rubber up front and 255/45R-17 out back, which seems like an an awful lot of sidewall for a modern sports car. We wouldn’t be surprised to see 18s or 19s offered in the United States. For comparison’s sake, the ’93 Supra Turbo wore 235/45R-17 tires on its front wheels and 255/40R-17s in the rear.

Of course, all of the usual caveats apply—foreign market, preproduction specifications, filtered through a forum—and we’ll likely have to wait a long time for Toyota to confirm anything. A Supra race-car concept was just announced for next month’s Geneva auto show, however, so we may get some details then. While we wait, why not click and revisit some spy photos of the upcoming car?